Defeat (PSR Supplement)

---

As a protag, you are defeated when any one of several criteria are met:

• Your hit point maximum is reduced to 0. (This is different from your hit points themselves being reduced to 0.)
• Any ability score of yours is reduced to 0.
• Your terminally Unconscious body is abandoned in a perilous place.
• A game effect says you are defeated.
• You experience a dramatic death.

Finding defeat should never be the goal, but the risk of defeat gives weight and meaning to the decisions players are forced to make. The less repercussions a decision has, the less meaningful it is, and the less satisfying the game can feel. Thus these rules treat defeat as a real risk that is always a possibility.

When exactly happens when you face defeat is left somewhat ambiguous in these rules, as it is best decided by your narrator and the world your group cultivates.

Defeat doesn't necessarily result in death, but it always results in something best avoided. This page covers the two likeliest outcomes of defeat: death, and life with repercussions.

Death

"People die if they are killed."

Under defeat rules, if your protag is defeated, they die. Death is not necessarily the end, however. Magic and marvels can potentially bring the dead back to life. Such a miracle is already quite difficult, and only becomes more so the worse shape your body is in and the longer it's been since your death.

If the party finishes a downtime day with you still deceased, by that point it's almost impossible. If this happens your narrator should help you create a new character to join the party by the end of that downtime period; perhaps a relative to the deceased. Perhaps you can assume control of an NPC already known to the party. There are multiple possibilities.

Death as a Spirit

Until you are resurrected, you can choose to persist as a formless spirit imperceptible to others. As this spirit you are loosely aware of everything that happens within 60 feet of your body—or where your body was destroyed, if no body remains.

Spiritual Influence. You maintain some subtle and mysterious influence over the living world within this 60-foot radius. Whenever a creature unhidden to you rolls a d20, you can use your reaction to reroll that d20. As normal a d20 that's rerolled can't be rerolled again by any effect. Outside of this special reaction you can take no other actions or reactions.

Passing On. When you assume control of a new protag, your previous character's spirit ascends to a mysterious afterlife, and is likely beyond your control forever.

Life With Repercussions

"Not today."

If you are particularly fortunate, your defeat may not necessarily end in your death. If your entire party was wiped out by a group of bandits, you might regain consciousness later as prisoners held for ransom. Researchers or eldritch beings might keep you alive to be host for a horrible parasite, or some horrifying experiment. Perhaps it was all a nightmare?

Maybe you will find a savior in your darkest hour. If you were defeated during a quest important to a powerful being, perhaps that being might aid you. A guardian spirit might do so, or perhaps even a deity.

Often this survival will be at great cost. If you are lucky enough to survive with repercussions, it is likely most or all items carried on your body will be lost.